Islamic Blog dealing with religious and worldly issues faced by the Muslims.

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Monday, 5 May 2014

Racial Traits, Spiritual Elevation and 'Dua'/ Prayer

We have already seen in the article “Racial Traits and
Spiritual Elevation” there is no such thing as spiritual superiority on
the basis of racial traits. Racial traits are neutral in their essence; they
can be used both for the good or for the bad. There is no single human trait
which can be used for the good only or for the bad only. Human traits may be
superior or inferior in terms of attaining worldly achievements, but they
cannot be superior or inferior in terms of spiritual achievements. All human
traits may be used to attain equal but distinct spiritual elevation or
spiritual degradation. Every individual is distinct in his/her spiritual
achievements because every individual is bestowed with distinct traits/emotions
which provide the basis for spiritual elevations. No doubt
Allah determines everything to be faced by human beings; Allah
determines spiritual elevation/degradation on the basis of human deeds or
Allah's will but not on the basis of race.

We know that human being is granted with various kinds
of traits/emotions- pleasures and sorrows, liking and disliking, excitements
and shocks, sadness and happiness, love and hate, affection and aversion, hope
and frustration, trust and distrust, self-respect and lack of self-respect,
courage and cowardliness, patience and impatience, resilience and lack of
resilience, meanness and charity, mercy and cruelty, anger and joy, shallowness
and profoundness etc. Out of these traits, every individual is granted by Allah
with a fixed composition/set of traits in terms of kind and
magnitude/degree, which may vary from person to person. This fixed composition
of traits/emotions is called ‘shakilah’.

Allah
says: "Everyone acts according to his own disposition/ ‘shaakilah’: But
your Lord knows best who it is that is best guided on the Way" (Isra-84).

Once granted to human being, fixed composition of
traits is never changed. (plz see my article ' Determined Psyche of Human
Being'). Every person acts in his/her life according to this composition of
traits he/she is bestowed upon. Actually traits are the basic tool through
which a person is judged by Allah in this worldly life. These human
traits are neither good nor bad in their essence; it is the human choice of the
situations, and kind and magnitude of these traits to manifest in those
situations, which makes a human deed good or bad. A human deed based on each
kind of traits (e.g. love or hate, anger or lack of anger, lust or lack of
lust, courage or cowardliness etc) may be either good or bad, depending upon
the situation chosen and the magnitude of trait to display in such situation.
For instance lack of anger shown in a situation which requires anger to be
shown would be a bad act; similarly showing anger in a situation which requires
lack of anger to be shown would be a bad act. Similarly lesser degree of
charity shown in a situation which requires greater degree of charity to be
displayed would be a bad act; similarly greater degree of charity in a situation
which requires lesser degree of charity to be shown would be a bad deed. (e.g.
a Muslim cannot bequeath more than one third of his property through his
will).

It does not mean that all human races have been bestowed with equally
good traits for worldly achievements; definitely some individuals/races are
blessed with better traits than the other individuals/races. But such
superiority of racial traits impacts only worldly achievements; it has nothing
to do with level of spiritual elevations. As long as spiritual elevations are
concerned, equal but distinct spiritual elevations may be achieved on the basis
of every set of racial traits (every individual is distinct in his/her spiritual
achievements because every individual is bestowed with distinct traits/emotions
which provide the basis for spiritual elevations). All kinds of traits
(whether superior/inferior for worldly achievements) can be used to do the good
or the bad deeds. There is no single human trait which can be used only for the
good or only for the bad deed.

From the foregoing it is clear
that there is no such thing as spiritual superiority on the basis of racial
traits. But it does not mean that ‘dua’/prayer may not be made for
piety/spiritual elevation of a person/group of persons/tribe. ‘Hazrat’ Zakria (a.s) prayed
to have a pious son which was granted in the form of ‘Hazrat’ Yahya (a.s).
Similarly ‘Hazrat Ibraheem' (a.s) prayed to have leaders (both spiritual and worldly) in his progeny; this
prayer also has been granted. But what is to be appreciated is if a certain
person/group of persons/tribe is pious due to ‘dua’/ prayer, it does not mean such
person/group of persons/tribe has gained such piety due to some special
traits/emotions. Actually any other person/ group may attain the equal but
distinct level of spiritual elevation which has been attained by a particular
person/group/tribe due to application of ‘dua’/prayer [But obviously prophet-hood
cannot be attained by every person because prophet-hood is always by birth as
per Allah’s Sunnah; and according to Allah’s law no prophet can come after our
Nabi (s.a.w)]. In fact, ‘dua’/prayer means to invoke Allah’s special
intervention to get the things done, which happen through application of
Allah’s ‘Sunnah’/ natural laws. The natural law is that spiritual elevation has nothing to do with racial traits which are neutral in their essence and every trait/emotion can be used for the good and for the bad. Dua/ prayer is not to invoke violation of
Allah’s laws; ‘dua’ is just to invoke Allah’s special intervention to get a
thing which, of course, happens only through Allah’s laws/ natural laws. People are tried by Allah through two ways: through 'khair'/good or through 'sher'/ bad. The people which are made pious due to 'Dua' are the people which are tried through 'khair'/good; such people have to prove themselves to be worthy of 'khair'/good they are granted with without their effort through 'Dua'; if such people tried through 'khaira' do not prove to be worthy of such 'khaira', that 'khaira' is taken away from them. Similarly if people tried through 'sher' prove to be not worthy of such 'sher', that 'sher' is taken away from them. Therefore we may conclude that a pious
person/group of persons which are pious due to ‘Dua’/ prayer have not gained
such piety due to any special traits/emotions. Piety is the result of interplay of human traits/emotions. These human
traits are neither good nor bad in their essence; it is the human choice of the
situations, and kind and magnitude/degree of these traits to manifest in those
situations, which makes a human deed good or bad.